Sharalike - Quickly Create Audio Slideshows

Sharalike is a free iOS, Android, and web app that makes it easy to create audio slideshow videos. To create an audio slideshow video with Sharalike simply open the app, select pictures to import, drag and drop them into any sequence you like, and then choose some music to accompany your images. Sharalike handles all of the work of adding transitions, pan and zoom effects, and lighting adjustments. You can choose from several slideshow themes. Each theme uses slightly different transitions and frames around your images. Sharalike does include a small selection of free instrumental music that you can use in your slideshow or you can import music from outside of the service.


Applications for Education
Summarizing the highlights of an event, summarizing the key points in a story, and summarizing the results of research project are all common purposes for creating audio slideshows.

Draw and Tell - Great App for Simple Digital Stories

This afternoon, for the first time ever, I let my toddler use my iPad. I hadn't planned on letting her play with it, but I had it open to play music and she grabbed it while I was changing her sister's diaper. She enjoyed pushing the button and seeing things change when she tapped the screen. Before I put the iPad away, I showed her and let her play with the Draw and Tell app.

Draw and Tell is a free iPad app that kids can use to create simple animated stories. At its most basic level Draw and Tell provides a blank canvas on which students can draw pictures and or write notes. The app provides a variety of canvas options including a blank screen, lined screens, graph paper, and colorful background borders. Kids can draw on the canvas by using virtual pencils, pens, crayons, and paints. There are also options to apply digital stickers and stencils to creations in Draw and Tell.

Draw and Tell is more than just a drawing tool. The app includes options for kids to record themselves talking about the things they are drawing. Those recordings are saved with their drawings as simple video files. All of the files are saved in the app. Students can combine their video files to make longer animations.

Create Your Own Typing Games

Two of the most popular posts of the month so far have included typing games. One of those posts featured ABCya's free typing games and the other one featured TypeTastic's collection of free typing games. But you don't have to rely on other people making typing games for your students. You can use the Flippity Add-on for Google Sheets to create your own customized typing games. Watch the following video to learn how you can create your own typing games.



Applications for Education
The benefit of making your own typing games is that you can specify the words that appear in the game. When building a custom typing game I would words that are already on the lists of vocabulary words that my students need to know.

TinyTap - Create Image Reveal Games and Identification Games

This morning I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a way to create educational games in which students have to correctly answer questions in order to reveal a picture or part of a picture. My suggestion was to try TinyTap. TinyTap is a free iPad app and free Android app that lets you create and publish educational games. One of the features of the app is the ability to create "Houdini" mode games. These are games in which students answer questions to reveal an image. Watch the following video to see how TinyTap's Houdini mode works.


TinyTap's original game template enabled teachers to create identification games. That is still a feature available in the app along with many other features that you can learn about in the following playlist of tutorial videos.

Jamendo Can Help Students Understand Copyright

Copyright is one of the topics that I always cover in my webinars and workshops about making videos with students. The subtopic under copyright that many students struggle to understand is how copyright affects the music they can or cannot include in their video projects. That confusion is often rooted in the idea that someone has purchased music through iTunes or Google Play so they think that gives them a license to reuse it. The truth is that purchasing music through one of those services gives you a license for personal use but not for reuse. If you want to give your students a good representation of this concept, show them the screen that loads when you try to download a song on Jamendo.



If you are looking for music that you can reuse for free, check out Dig CC Mixter.